) This will be LONG and wordy, but i'll try and lend opinions on things that I wanted to know about the amp before buying it. You can't always find a place to turn an amp up loud and actually hear how it sounds. Hopefully this will be able to supplement what you already know and guide you as to whether or not this is the right amp for you. My background (as opinions are only good if you know their reference point):
I've been playing guitar for about 15 years. I've been primarily rhythm player for most that time, and I play in indie rock bands. My preferences are centered around medium gain crunch and rhythm tones. Though I do play lead in the band i'm in now and i'm really getting into excelling more as a lead player. I've owned a *lot* of amps, and a lot of expensive ones. The old stuff, Vox AC-30's, Marshall Superleads, JCM800's, JMP's, Hiwatts, vintage Orange OR series head, ect. My bands play loud...50W head on 10 loud. I rotate 4 or 5 guitars; Gibson SG, Les Pauls, Ric 360, Fender Tele. Anyways, on to the amp...
This is based on a 2006 AD30TC 2x12 combo that I bought used a few months ago. Be informed that they did change the transformer design a few times throughout production. So if you're buying a used one, do a little homework.
Design, Features, and build quality
You can find this stuff out pretty easily, but mind as well put it all in one place.
-2 Channels, foot switchable or switchable via toggle on the control panel
-Bass, Mid, Treble, Gain, Master volume for each channel
-Loaded with 2 Celestion V30's
-No reverb, no effects loop
-26" X 20.5" X 12", 85 lbs.
-Four 12AX-7's
-Four EL-84's
-One GZ34 rectifier tube
This is a modern mass produced amp. Nearly everything in it is it mounted to a PCB. Tube sockets, pots, jacks, and all. The overall fit and finish of the amp is excellent. Tolex is applied nicely. Grille, piping, and other aesthetics are all 100% spot on. I'd expect nothing less for the price tag. The grille cloth is super thick and very high quality. Passive electronic components are nice quality. Pots and switches have a nice robust feel to them. Switches flick back and forth with a satisfying thunk. Pots have smooth and weighty feel to them. The PCB is nice quality and nicely anchored. It's not the best i've ever seen, but pretty decent quality with respect to the wafer board, tracing, and layout. The chassis is nice and sturdy and the enameling is top notch. The face plate is nicely screened and high quality. The wood skids on the bottom (same as all Oranges) are a nice touch and I prefer them to rubber feet.
The amp is heavy, at 85 lbs. The big side handles make it easy to move, and it's not huge for a 2x12 combo. So outside of the weight, it's not bad. However, the little handles on the top should have been sized better so they're flush with the height of the amp. They are raised above everything else. If they thought lowering them wouldn't provide enough room for your fingers, the chassis should have been lowered and spaced out with shims. Just a nit picky little detail though.
Now the bad. The tolex is thin. It tears easily, especially around the sharper edges in the rear of the amp. The pre-tube shields are complete pieces of garbage. They deform too easily and I have one that likes to pop off. I'll have to get some better quality ones, but the bases are complete pieces of junk as well, so i'm not sure this will solve the problem.
The PCB is nice quality. It's well anchored and things are put together nicely. But I was surprised to see a few components in the amp that were "thrown" in. Where the schematic obviously calls for a single resistor, they must have been out of a few of them the day my amp was made, as they put 2 resistors twisted together in series to get the needed value. These resistors are identical to all the others in the amp, and inspection with a mirror doesn't yield any visible evidence the solders have ever been reflowed. It appears to be factory. This kind of thing is a complete joke for *any* reputable amp maker, let alone a well established name that commands the kind of pricing this amp does. (See pics of this below).
But overall, the amp is as well built as any modern amp design implemented in a reasonably well thought out fashion. It's surely gig worthy, road worthy, and should be pretty trouble free.
Sound
Let me start of by saying that I hate channel switchers. Hate them. I can't stand the abrupt change from a "clean" tone to a "dirty" one. I hate the feel and response of a channel that's been specifically designed to only be played distorted. But this isn't your typical channel switcher. "Twin Channel" is a bit of a stretch, as the two channels ARE distinctly different. But it's a far cry from your typical channel switcher. I love this about it. I use the 2 channels more as different tools so I can get different sounds for different songs, or with different guitars. I don't even hook the footswitch up, as I never switch channels mid-song.
Here's the quick summary:
Channel 1: Less gain, thicker, more low, less high. Midrange more prominent in the lower mids.
Channel 2: More gain, less low end, brighter, a little thinner. Midrange more prominent in the upper mids.
Both channels, ala Fender, give ZERO output with the tone controls set on zero. The tone controls act on their respective frequency ranges without as much interaction as some other circuits (Vox and Hiwatt, for instance). This is not bad or good, just a characteristic of the amp.
Channel 1:
Channel 1 is the the thicker of the 2 channels. It has that nice thick, low-midrangy, dark, wet sound to it that's characteristic of Oranges. Some complain that these amps are too dark. IMO, absolutely not. If you ask me, most amps are far too bright. This channel doesn't have a lot of sparkle. But it has plenty of top end to sound clear. Humbucker guitars sound thick and grunty through this. The notes have a nice amount of heft for a 30W amp with EL84's in it. But it's not a wide open crisp and chiming tone. It's more full bodied and round, with that signature prickly texture to the upper register. People who don't like Oranges call it fizzy. I call it prickly, or maybe even fuzzy. It is, however, pleasing to the ear. Single coil guitars sound flat out brilliant through this channel. The dark voicing, nice bottom end, and low midrange presence really even out the response from something like a Tele bridge pickup. I've never heard my Tele sound like it does through channel 1 of the AD30. A great pairing.
Channel 2:
Channel 2 is brighter. It has more gain, it sounds thinner than channel 1. People that compare the AD30 to the Vox AC-30 are talking about this channel. Does it sound like an AC-30? No. But it does a very cool chimey, grinding kind of sound that has nice sparkle while still retaining that characteristic Orange midrange and prickly texture. I do wish that this channel had a little more heft to it, as it sounds thin compared to Channel 1. But truth be told, it's not a terribly thin sounding channel. Being put in the context of channel 1 exacerbates that. Channel 2, with a single coil guitar, does sounds that you've never expect to hear come out of something covered in Orange tolex. This is obviously a popular amp. But even still, I think people typecast it into that characteristic Orange overdrive sound. It's quite good at doing a very unique chime with great upper midrange grind. I have yet to hear anything else like it. This, so far, is the thing about the amp that most surprised me.
Dynamic response
The master volumes on the amp work quite well. I hate master volumes, and it's been a long long time since i've owned an amp with a master. The Hiwatt has one, but it doesn't count as the pre-amp has no saturation to it, even on 10. This is the only master volume amp i've owned that i'm actually happy with the master down below 10. This is the entire reason why I bought it, so that's a good thing. Don't expect it to get whisper quiet. It's a 30W amp. But for a gigging musician that plays with a rock drummer and in rock clubs or loud bars, the master volumes will get you not only useable, but good tones at any workable volume above 1/2 on the master. The sound *does* change at different volumes. But not so much that you can't work around it.
I heard a lot of people call this amp springy, or saggy. Those are terms I use to describe my Vox, which I love. I don't find them to apply to the AD30 at all. Yes, it has a tube rectifier. Yes, it's cathode biased. But I don't find it to be a particularly spongy amp. This is in part due to the V30 speakers. 2 of them in the amp have a power handling of 120W. This is 4 times the output power of the amp cranked on full. The speakers aren't even breaking a sweat. The amp feels a lot different through a pair of Greenbacks or AlNiCo Blues.
I'd call the response of the amp sweet, forgiving, and maybe a little soft. But don't expect the springy bouncy attack you get from an AC-30 into 2 Celestion blues. The AD30 doesn't do that. The response, IMO, is just tight enough for it to sound aggressive when you want it, and just loose enough to sound sweet and forgiving. The dampening and response on the amp is spot on for what it does. You could change it in one direction or the other, but that would, IMO, be compromising one of the 2 channels. The response is middle of the road and a perfect compromise of the range of sounds that the amp does.
The amp is also VERY compressed. If you're one to roll back your guitar volume (or use a volume pedal), you'll know what I mean. There is probably less of a perceived volume difference between between "clean" and "full on dirty" than any other amp i've played. At first, I wasn't a fan, as i'm used to the picking transients slapping my ears and letting me know when i'm digging in. But truth be told, like any other time you get a new piece of gear, you learn to work with what it offers. I'm into it. And, the amp has 2 channels...if I really wanted to introduce more of a volume difference between clean and dirty...I could use the channel switching feature (as much as I shy away from that).
The amp doesn't have considerable headroom, even for a 30W EL84 amp. So if you're looking for loud pristine bell like cleans, look elsewhere. But the master volume and gain taper do work well to provide you with enough headroom that you can get cleans that aren't all that broken up near full volume, which is loud enough to keep up with just about any drummer. The fact that the amp is sooooo compressed means that it kind of masks that the headroom is on the low side.
Overall sound
I have a Vox AC-30. I love the amp to death, but it's an older model without a master volume...it's loud. I also have a '70s Orange OR-80. I love the dark overdrive, but again, it's a beast. The AD30 doesn't sound exactly like either of those amps. But it does sounds in the vein of those amps and does them close enough to keep me happy with it. Wait a minute? I'm happy with the amp because it sounds close enough to 2 others I like? That's not really the case, but i'd like to make a point. I think a lot of reviews and opinions about this amp tend to compare the AD30 to other amps. I know I was guilty of it. This was the first new Orange design that really hit the music scene after the OR-head of past years. We used the OR's as a yardstick to measure it. People used the Vox AC-30 as a yardstick to measure it. People compared it to Marshalls. After spending some time with the amp, I realized that thinking about it as "A fuzzier AC-30", or "a beefier Marshall", etc was kind of missing the point. The amp really does do its own thing, and that thing is worthy of being recognized.
What I *don't* like
Nothing is perfect. Here's my nitpicking about the sound of the amp. Although it's nice that the 2 channels are different, I feel that neither one of them is perfectly voiced. I find myself switching on channel 1 and thinking, "Ehh, I wish is was a liiiitle more clear"...then switching to channel 2 and thinking, "Oh...there's the clarity, but now it sounds too thin, I want more low end". Then back to channel 1. Truth be told, i'd be happier with a single channel that was voiced right in the middle of these 2. Maybe that's what the single channel AD30 sounded like. I've never played one, I wouldn't know. I'm a tweaker, and I *may* get in there and play around lightly with some cap values. We'll see.
Also, the speakers. I mentioned the power handling before. The tone of the V30's is spot on for the amp. But I do wish I was getting better dynamic response from having speakers that are working a little bit in the amp. I've tried a single V30, and although it feels nicer, it sounds thinner. I've tried Greenbacks, and they don't sound as crisp. Same thing with the blues. I think those speakers are too warm and don't have enough top end for this amp to sound like it should. Nice choices, but not my preference for this. In the end, I don't have a solution, but that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement. Custom speakers would skyrocket cost. I'll deal with the V30's. But if you're a stickler on dynamic response from cone breakup, be aware that you get none of that here. Most will feel the amp doesn't need it. But if you're used to it, you miss it a bit.
The "Q" of the bass and treble tone controls is a bit too wide. I find if I want a little more clarity, the treble knob brings up other frequencies I don't want. I find if I want a little more or less bass, it affects too much of the low end spectrum. The mid knob, in comparison, doesn't occupy enough space. If you're happy with all the knobs set the same relative to one another, this is not an issue. But if you're the type that puts EQ knobs in extreme positions, you are likely to notice it.
Overall
This amp is for you if you are looking for:
-A channel switching amp with master volumes that will make you happy even if you hate that stuff.
-An amp that sounds good over a reasonable range of volumes and has a nice master volume that will keep both you and the sound guy pretty happy.
-A modern mass produced amp that, although a little overpriced for the build, is worth it in circuit design and the overall package.
-Something that does full bodied overdrive, and chiming clean all in one package.
This amp is NOT for you if you are looking for:
-High clean headroom
-Super tight distortion and/or gobs of gain
-A channel switcher that does pristine clean *CLICK* head banging over drive.
-A Vox AC-30 with Orange tolex
-An OR-80 with a clean channel
-Reverb, effect loop, or lots of knobs and switches
Hope that helps some people. On to the pics...
